


Outside (One Foot...)

by umusings



Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, after one foot on sea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 09:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4385792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umusings/pseuds/umusings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Balth and Pedro finally get together</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outside (One Foot...)

“Okay,” Pedro finally burst out, caught in a wave of the adrenaline that had been pounding against his shoreline chest. “Balthazar,” he said, suddenly tentative, the crest quickly flattening out as Balthazar turned to look at him. “Do you, erm, want to go outside with me?” he finished, gesticulating rather haphazardly at the door. Balth nodded, smiling slightly, and mumbled “yeah - yeah, sure”. Pedro turned away from the camera, catching Balth’s hand in his own before they both left the room. 

He hadn’t expected Balthazar’s hands to be cold, he thought, shocked that he had enough brain power left to form any thoughts with Balthazar’s electric touch lighting up entire cities in his hand. But cold they were: not the jagged bite of windstorms or the veiny ice of winter mornings, but instead, the kind of cold you feel when you go for a walk with someone and stay out until dark because you feel like you’re already home. 

Balth cleared his throat quietly, the sound tugging Pedro back to the conversation they needed to have. “Okay,” Pedro said. “Okay okay okay okay” he muttered, shaking his head as though trying to force his brain back into place. Balthazar watched kindly, lips curved in mild amusement and a overpowering sense of relief that he wasn’t the only one who struggled to operate around the other. “Okay.” Pedro said with a sense of finality, looking up at Balth. He swallowed the feeling of being disarmed that came from looking directly into Balth’s twilight eyes, and plunged ahead.

“So. I watched Ode again last week,” Pedro said, and Balth glanced down for a second, flushing slightly as he remembered his musical confession. “And I thought… I dunno exactly. But I think I'm finally in a place where the lyrics gave me the final reason I needed to tell people that I wasn’t… that I'm not…” Pedro trailed off, still not used to talking frankly about his sexuality. Nodding slowly, Balth released Pedro’s now-clammy left hand from his own, and carefully intertwined his fingers with the other. “That you aren't…?” he ventured. Pedro exhaled. “That I'm not… straight,” he said finally, his furrowed brow relaxing as the weight of the words slipped off his shoulders. A grin bubbled to Balth’s lips before he could swallow it down, and Pedro, braving a look at Balth after staring at the wall directly behind him, smiled back. 

“When did you realize?” Balth asked him seriously, eyes once again focused on Pedro with an intensity that wasn’t altogether unfamiliar, but still managed to make him feel a bit lightheaded. He shrugged in an attempt to be flippant, but there was a weight to his movement that Balth recognized. “I think… I think I’ve always known, really. As soon as I was old enough to find anyone attractive. But, y’know, it was easier to pretend that I was straight, so I just sort of ignored it. Until, well, I couldn’t. Or, at least, I had a good enough reason not to.” Balth’s eyebrows rose of their own accord. “What reason?” he almost squeaked, barely keeping his voice down to a pitch audible to humans. 

Pedro looked at Balth for a while, quiet. Finally, he sighed. “You,” he said. “When you first uploaded Ode, I wasn’t ready to come out publicly, or even really acknowledge your gesture. But I talked to Ursula after listening to it again last Wednesday... and she told me I still had a shot. So this week, I spent a long time thinking. I thought, and thought, and thought some more. Hell, I even talked to John. And eventually, I realized something. I realized…”

“What?” Balth whispered.

Balth was not quite sure how he was feeling. He knew there was overwhelming hope, some guilt (he knew he should have thought more about uploading ‘An Ode’ before he did it, he _knew_ it, but he’d always tended to get so caught up in the Gesture of things), and a lot of joy. But there was something else too.

He was proud.  
He was so fucking proud of Pedro. 

“I realized…” Pedro tried again, staring at the wall directly below Balth’s ear. “I realized that I wanted to be honest. For once in my life, I wanted to do what I wanted, not just `what people expected from the ‘all around great guy’. God, I hate that name,” he shook his head, and continued. "I wanted to be with the guy I like without worrying about what people think. I wanted… I dunno. I wanted to be who I’ve always been without being so damn scared all the time.” 

Balth nodded. He understood; not in the way people understand when they’ve been in the same place, but in the way they understand when they listen without letting themselves get in the way. “Yeah,” he said quietly. 

Pedro looked back at Balth. “Yeah,” he exhaled. There was something so tender about the way Balth was looking at him, something both incredibly fragile and strong. It took a minute for Pedro to realize he still hadn’t inhaled and that maybe some of the short circuiting in his brain wasn’t entirely Balthazar’s fault and he should probably take a breath but the distance between them appeared to be shrinking and he barely had time to gulp before Balth’s lips were on his and _dear god_ if holding his hand was electricity, this was lightning arcing through his body with all the desperation of a madman holding a key out to a storm. 

Pedro let go of Balthazar’s hand and wrapped both arms tightly around Balthazar’s slender torso, tracing one hand slowly up his spine before tangling it through his hair. Shivering slightly at his touch, Balth brought one hand to the bend between Pedro’s shoulder and neck, and ran his thumb over his jawline, grabbing a fistful of sweater with the other. Balthazar broke away briefly to catch his breath, and licked his lips, accidentally catching Pedro’s mouth in the process. Pedro pulled back for a second, fixing Balthazar with an unreadable stare. Then, before Balth could process exactly what was happening, Pedro had hooked his hands around his hips and was pressing him to the stretch of wall next to Bea’s door. Balth leaned forward, gripping Pedro’s waist, and kissed him again, quickly pressing his tongue to Pedro’s lips before drawing it back inside his own mouth. Pedro responded in kind, and Balth groaned and turned around, so that now he was the one pushing Pedro to the wall, both boys completely oblivious to anything around them except for the other.

Neither one heard the door swing open. When Benedick screeched “OI!” at the sight of two of his friends furiously making out against the wall of his girlfriend’s cousin's bedroom, Balth and Pedro sprung apart, which, unfortunately for Pedro, entailed slamming his head against the wall at a rather uncomfortable velocity. John caught his brother’s eye and smirked, causing both Balthazar and Pedro to flush deeply scarlet and look away from each other. Benedick shook his head in mock disapproval. “I know we were trying to get you guys together, but I didn’t mean _that_ close together. Jesus, guys. Have some sense of propriety.” 

“Oh, fuck off,” Pedro said, still slightly pink, his usually perfect hair completely scattered. Balthazar smiled to himself. “Well, you’re just so effective, Ben,” he said. “Only have yourself to blame, really.” Pedro looked at him and grinned. “Yeah. I mean, it is entirely your fault.” 

Benedick rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Oh, I see how it is. Fine, then. I’m going to go downstairs and pretend I didn’t see you two sucking face. See you later,” he said in a mildly sarcastic tone that barely suppressed his delight. He and John both turned to go downstairs. 

“So,” Pedro said, pulling Balth back to his former position by his shirt. “Where were we?”


End file.
